In a recent report by Famitsu, Project Diva f has managed to ship 154,000 units within its first week of launch, and sales of the Vita quadrupled to 47,000 units for the same week. This placed PjD f at the top of game sales in Japan for that week, also making it the only Vita game in the top 20 for last week’s sales. While this appears to come as good news, this report is a silver lining that hides the truth behind these figures.

While 154,000 game units were shipped, this does not translate to an actual number of units sold (aka, in consumer hands). The game itself is readily available and easily found for sale online from multiple vendors without too much effort. The mention of a quadruple increase of PS Vita sales also sounds positive, but it’s far below predicted figures. This places the PS Vita 27,000 units below the Nintendo 3DS sales for the same week, which moved a total of 74,000 units. To further compare, the original PSP is still outselling the Vita, not counting the past week’s sale boost.

The slow movement of Vita units has also effected the sale of the Crystal White Miku Vita, which can be found for sale in healthy quantities from Amazon Japan for about $560 USD for the wifi model. This price has been continuing to drop over the past several days as the number of available units has been increasing. Many online vendors are selling the same system for markups as high as $900, and eBay resellers are already trying to sell these units off for as high as $1400. Save yourself a lot of trouble and money, and simply order directly from Amazon Japan.

While Miku was able to breathe some quick life into the Vita, it was not enough. High unit pricing and high accessory pricing continues to turn away many customers, and Sony will have to do something soon if they expect the Vita to survive another year on the market.

As you can see, Miku is probably happy being number one there, but no other Vita titles made the top 20? Really? These numbers suggest that our favorite singer is literally the only thing keeping the Vita alive at all. I think your right, Sony really needs to figure out what it plans to do with the Vita, because as much as the world loves Miku, she can’t be expected to carry an entire console that people just don’t really want for the price that Sony wants to sell the Vita at.

http://www.youtube.com/user/jrharbort jrharbort

@Pontianak: Thank you very much for the mention of game sales rankings! I’ve updated the first paragraph with additional information.

faTWave

This is bad…really need to help. I’ll be there soon.

Cosmoman

Yep..unless they make another Miku’s game, Vita is done for. SONY needs to appeal to game developers to create a great and highly interesting game for Vita.

Cosmoman

A LOT of people didn’t mind buying the high-priced console, as long as the games for that console worth it, trust me on this one.

http://www.youtube.com/user/jrharbort jrharbort

@Cosmoman: The main issue isn’t just the limited game selection. It’s the fact that there’s so few Vita units sold around the world. Only 2.4 million, in fact. The 3DS has sold 10X more units.

Akita Neru

Apart from lack of games, Vita have idiotic interface (give our beloved XMB back!), poor camera, slow browser, it can’t call and SMS, it is fragile… All of this makes Vita usable only for games, and since there are almost no games, nobody will buy it. Especially now, when mobile gaming sector is dominated by tablets and smartphones.

Todd

I think a big part of it is the ridiculous price. I could understand 250-300 at most. But going up to 560+ is insane.

http://www.youtube.com/user/jrharbort jrharbort

@Todd: This is the price after the JPY->USD conversion. The USD value has fallen 33% over the past 4 years. This means that Japanese good today are 50% more expensive than they were in 2007. The pricing isn’t because of them, it’s because of our weaker currency value.